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At NPE2018 next month, W. Amsler Equipment Inc., Richmond Hill, Ont., will introduce the next generation of its linear stretch-blow molder as well as a newly enhanced leak tester. The L42X all-electric reheat machine offers several new features for custom PET blow molders, including preferential heating, neck orientation, and hot-fill capability. It can make up to 2 L containers at up to 6500/hr in four cavities. It can also run two-cavity molds for containers up to 5 L. Neck finishes range from 18 to 70 mm.

The L42X has a 40-ton clamp and four parallel heating ovens, one for each cavity. It is equipped with 12 Bosch Rexroth servo motors, compared with three servos for the previous model. The extra motors are said to provide more repeatability and lower energy consumption, while requiring less wiring, which results in easier troubleshooting.

Other key features include agitated preform infeed to prevent bridging, preform temperature sensing prior to blow, pre-blow flow control for each cavity, water-cooled neck shields, and a large Windows-based touchscreen with access to assembly drawings, bills of materials, setup guides, troubleshooting, and training videos.

The company is showing its newly enhanced leak tester that inspects bottles from 10 ml to 20 L at up to 18,000 bph. Equipped with a camera system that can detect neck ovality issues, the leak tester can find holes as small as 0.006 in. and can check for obstructions in the bottle neck and variations in wall thickness. Other optional features include detecting color deviation, batch counting, and fallen bottle detection.

Amsler is also showing its stand-alone spin trimmer for both stretch- and extrusion-blown containers of PET, PETG, HDPE, PVC, and PP. It handles container diameters up to 200 mm at up to 6000/hr.

When every worker in a plant has glasses on—not standard-issue safety goggles but wearable displays—Scott Montgomerie believes industry might look back at this time as the tipping point for adoption of augmented reality on the factory floor.